246 



GARDENING. 



May /, 



tleyas, laelias, vandas, etc.. should be 

 carefully examined, and wherever any 

 decayed matter is found it should be care- 

 fully removed, picking out as much as 

 possible and then with the hose wash out 

 what remains, then renew by using clean 

 fern root. And if your fancy so directs, 

 you may gather from, the margin of the 

 swamp the short stubby sphagnum and 

 place it on top of the fern root. Encourage 

 growth by shading and keeping moist, 

 and when the sphagnum gets too high 

 give it a slight shearing. The danger of 

 the sphagnum mode of growing orchids 

 is that in moderate weather when the 

 ventilators are closed in fall if great care 

 is not taken the sphagnum gets into a 

 state of decay, and with the decay of the 

 sphagnum comes the decay of the orchid 

 roots. Now this decay of the roots of your 

 cattleyas for two or three seasons means 

 a speedy decline of your plants. Our win- 

 ters require so much artificial heat that a 

 certain amount of moisture must be used, 

 especially atmospheric moisture, and if 

 the cattleyas have their pots or baskets 

 full of decayed sphagnum or other matter 

 it is impossible to supply the necessary 

 moist air that is so necessary to the life 

 of the plant during its resting period. 



Cypripediums I find do better in sphag- 

 num than in anj'thing else, but I do not 

 know of any kind that does not like 

 plenty of drainage, and they also delight 

 in sending their roots through the surface 

 of living sphagnum. They enjoy lots of 

 water, but care must be taken that they 

 get plenty of fresh air. 1 make a rule of 

 filling the pots three quarters full of clean 

 broken brick, and of going through the 

 plants about twice a year to give them 

 clean drainage and often clean pots. I 

 tell you it pays to give them these little 

 attentions. " Wm, Mathews. 



lltiea, N. Y. 



The Greenhouse. 



HEflTlNO fl OREENtiOUSE. 



I had a greenhouse about 28x1.3 feet 

 heated with a hot water heater. The 

 boiler was placed in a pit in a separate 

 apartment, the top of the boiler was 

 about 1 foot above the greenhouse level, 

 the flow from the boiler was IVa-inch 

 pipe, into a manifold, which was tapped 

 on the face to receive 6 pipes, one inch 

 each. They had a gradual ascent until 

 they reached the further end of the green- 

 house, where they emptied into a mani- 

 fold, and this manifold emptied into a 

 large piece of 4-inch pipe as an expansion 

 tank, now the returns were made with a 

 manifold from the expansion tank, on a 

 downward pitch about the same as the 

 ascent on the flows on the opposite side 

 of the greenhouse. These empty into a 

 manifold, and from here sink underground 

 until they enter the return opening of 

 heater. I have now removed to another 

 part of the city and have had the green- 

 house taken apart, and am erecting it 

 again about ISVbxlSVo feet outside meas- 

 urement. As I have all the pipes, mani- 

 folds, etc., please advise me the best man- 

 ner to lay them again forbest circulation. 



Philadelphia. J, P. T. 



Set the boiler in the pit, as shown on 

 sketch, as much below the pipes in the 

 greenhouse as it can conveniently bedone. 

 Tlie lower the boiler the quicker the cir- 

 culation will be. The pipes F to B should 

 grade up one inch or more in each five 

 feet, and from B to A four to six inches, 

 or even more, if convenient. The return 



pipes should grade down from A to C to 

 correspond with the grade from B to A. 

 At C the main pipe should drop low 

 enough down to pass under the doorways 

 and walks, then enter the boiler pit 

 through the cellar wall, and at E drop 

 vertically low enough to enter the return 

 opening of the boiler, the grade from D 

 to E being 1 inch in five feet. If it is de- 

 sired to use the old apparatus we can 

 suggest no change in the general arrange- 

 ment. 



For a new apparatus we would advise 

 very much larger pipes, and not so many 

 of them, as the resistance to the circula- 

 tion of the water caused by the friction 

 in these small pipes is an important fac- 

 tor, and requires harder firing than would 

 be necessary if the pipes were larger. 

 Small pipes also cool off more rapidly if 

 the fire accidentally burns low during the 

 night. 



WINDOW OflRDEN QUESTIONS. 



M. E., Tower Hill, 111., asks the follow- 



Havingjust re- 

 ceived it from a greenhouse, how should 

 it be treated for best results in summer, 

 also so as to prepai-e it for wintering in a 

 cellar? 



Ans. Probably it is now in bloom. 

 Keep it in a cool slightly shaded place, 

 and now and all summer long give it 

 water unstintedly. Repot it, using rich 

 fibrous soil and "a rather large pot or 

 small tub, leaving lots of room at top to 

 hold water. Don't prune it till late fall 

 or early spring; you can keep it stocky by 

 giving it lots of room out of doors in sum- 

 mer. Before hard frost sets in cut off the 

 rankest leaves, and tie in the branches 

 together, then set the plants into the cel- 

 lar, but even there don't let them get dry 

 at the root. We prune ours by thinning 

 out the weaker shoots and heading back 

 some of the strong ones to big plump 

 eyes when storing them for winter; there's 

 no fear of starting their eyes into growth 

 prematurely then. 



2. Potting geraniums. When shall I 

 pot geraniums and slips or cuttings of 

 them, and how shall 1 treat them so as 

 to get reasonable bloom by January? 



Ans. We presume you refer to plants 

 to be kept in pots for blooming in- 

 doors in winter. Young plants raised 

 from cuttings this spring and now in 

 4-inch pots do well for such a purpose. 

 Repot them into 6-inch ones, using rich 

 loamy soil, and pot firmly. Plunge out 

 of doors in summer, but do not give much 

 water to them, and Hft up the pots, set- 

 ting them back again, every week, to pre- 

 vent the roots piercing through into the 

 ground under them. By the end of July 

 or first of August they should be fair sized, 

 firm, ripe-wooded stock. At that time 

 cut them in to a nice stocky form,turn them 

 out of their pots and shake the loose dirt 

 away from their roots, and repot, using 

 clean, well-drained pots no larger, if prac- 

 ticable, than what they were in before. 

 Plunge them outside for a month or so to 

 let them break afresh. Keep them warm 

 but not coddled, give them water when- 

 ever needed, and by Christmas in a sunny 

 window they should be stocky, leafy 

 plants, in bloom or showing flowers. 

 Cuttings struck now or next month, and 

 grown on in pots all summer, keeping 

 them rather under than over potted 

 should also come into bloom about New 

 Year's. 



3. Madame Bravy Rose. I have it in 

 a pot in a south facing window, its leaves 

 are healthy and it grows well and blooms 

 well (only one bloom at a time, though), 

 but the last few liuds when ready to open 



dry up and fall off. Is too hot the cause? 

 Ans. The cause is local, we can only 

 guess it. Too hot would spindle the 

 plants but hardly dry up the buds. Too 

 little water at the root coupled with too 

 much heat, a stifling dry atmosphere, 

 imperfect drainage, or the like might 

 do it. 



4. It IS CLAIMED there is a certain way 

 to take a cutting from main or older 

 branches to insure growth, and if you 

 fail to get those cuttings you fail in their 

 growth. Is this so? 



Ans. The query is not specific enough 

 to answer intelhgently. Take lobelia, 

 feverfew, ageratum, coleus or alteman- 

 thera, for instance, no matter how the 

 cutting is made or not made, it will root 

 with the greatest ease, geraniums, fuch- 

 sias and heliotrope cuttings should be 

 made by cutting the youngshoot close up 

 under a joint, and removing the leaves at 

 that joint; cuttings of lemon verbena are 

 easiest to root when cut off close to the old 

 branch with a "heel" or thin shaving of 

 the branch attached to them; and so on 

 in many ways. 



5. Begoni.\ metallica. I wish to 

 grow it tree-like, but even though I cut 

 the superfluous stems away they insist on 

 coming again. How should I treat it? 



Ans. It isn't a tree shaped begot ia; its 

 nature is to form a bushy several-stemmed 

 plant. Plant it out in the garden in sum- 

 mer in a cool, moistish spot, shaded from 

 warm sunshine, but not under the drip of 

 trees. Lift and repot it early in August 

 and get it well rooted in the pot before 

 cold raw nights set in, or, if you keep its 

 pot over summer, place it in a sheltei-ed, 

 faintly shaded spot. 



6. Russian violets in a box in the 

 window are growing nicelj' with me. 

 Can I grow it in the open ground over 

 winter? 



Ans. We think so. It does well in the 

 open garden at Dosoris, andisnow, April 

 24, a mass of blue fragrant blossoms. It 

 likes a cool moist place, protected from 

 cold winds, and if faintly shaded in sum- 

 mer so much the better. Although very 

 pretty, the flowers are not as fine or long 

 stemmed as we had them in cold frames 

 at and before Easter. Evergreen branches 

 laid over them make a fine winter protec- 

 tion, but any rank, dry mulch will do. If 

 you have them in clumps you can invert 

 old soap b ixes or the like over them in 

 winter and mulch around them. 



VoLKAMERI.i— ClERODENDRON. — k. C. 



B., Haywards, Cal., writes: "I would 

 like to get a shrub or plant called Volkame- 

 ria aculeate, also Volkameria acerbiana, 

 but do not find them listed in any cata- 

 logue." Volkameria is a syn. of Clero- 

 dendron. We do not know either of the 

 species named. 



The Fruit Garden. 



T«E FRUIT GARDEN. 



As it is the 25th of April we cannot do 

 better than tell you what we are doing or 

 about to do in this department. 



The ORCHARD trees have all been 

 pruned. Where pear trees had been in- 

 jured or killed by fire blight we rooted 

 them out and planted peach trees in their 

 place. There is a general impression that 

 if a pear tree has been destroyed by fire 

 blight and it is rooted out and cleared 

 away, and a new and healthy young pear 

 tree is planted in the same place, there is 

 no more likelihood ofit being blighted than 



